


Smile Through a Heartfelt Lie

by filiabelialis



Category: Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Animal Death, Bad Parenting, Dubious Consent, F/F, Fantasy Racism, Teenagers, Trans Character, Underage Sex, Unhappy Ending, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 19:42:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3353021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/filiabelialis/pseuds/filiabelialis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amora has taught Loki dangerous, illegal magics that they’ve practiced on each other, and jointly on other people; Amora is fucking her student and a <i>child</i> of the royal family.</p>
<p>Thanks to Loki, Amora has something of a taste for all of this, now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smile Through a Heartfelt Lie

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to Aria for the beta, and to all of my friends for the encouragement. Title thanks to Natalia Kills' "Saturday Night."
> 
> Warnings: Graphic description of violence and animal harm in one section (section 2), casual fantasy racism, slut shaming, underage sex and mentions of sex with a significant age gap, dubious consent (involving underage sex and the use of magic as an aphrodesiac), horrible teenagers, horrible parents, horrible mentors, and misgendering.

Asgard's younger prince has been apprenticed to Amora for several months already when Amora realizes that she was underestimating Loki badly.

"You're lying," Amora says. They are alone in her chambers, as they have been allowed to be since Amora satisfied the Queen as to her skills and decorum. Amora doesn't turn her back on Loki, nor does she even stop looking at his face. The illusion is beautifully done -- the changes are subtle, not masking himself wholesale with another face, but using his own to create elements like truth. He is very clever, if overly bold.

Loki, to her surprise, does not look angry. Instead he smiles, as though this is the reaction he expects. "Prove me wrong, then," he says, and even his voice lacks the harshness of his approaching manhood. She clearly has little to teach him in the way of illusions. "Illusions are particularly susceptible to disbelief, you say," Loki adds, as though reading the thought in her face. "You are already looking for the trick. A touch will dispel it." He steps forward, setting his shoulders back, and Amora can see budding breasts beneath his tunic. She decides Loki is not clever, after all. It is reckless, childish, the way Loki offers himself. Then again, he has already put on the guise of a woman to get her into bed with him. Perhaps he has already crossed the worst threshold.

She smiles, crossing her arms. "Fine. Take off that tunic." Loki's eyes widen, as though he is actually a young maiden being asked to remove her shirt rather than a young man who spends summers and sparring bouts with his chest bare.

"Don't be coy." Amora swallows her laugh, charmed despite herself at Loki's thorough dedication to this performance. "I know there are ways for clothes to conceal sex. You think you are the only young man to wear this disguise?"

Loki's eyes narrow, but the smile reappears as his hands fall to his buttons. "Perhaps."

The tunic drops to the floor, and Amora steps forward again. A little shiver passes through Loki at her proximity. He makes a beautiful girl, though thin. Amora draws him near with a hand on his waist, and is surprised to feel the curve she sees, the sharp dip inward from his hips. She doesn't know how he's done it. Loki's mouth has fallen slightly open, his breathing a little deeper. Amora slides her other hand up his stomach to his chest, where flesh from small breasts pillows into the spaces between her fingers, warmth radiating up his ribs underneath. No straps, no seams. His breast fits perfectly into her palm, and warmth begins uncurling in Amora's belly, though she ignores it for the moment. She closes the space between them, opening his mouth with hers and drinking in his shaky breath. She flicks a nipple with her fingers, and Loki twitches, though he cannot see what she is doing. He really feels it.

She pulls back to assess him, the flush down his neck and and his eyes on her, watching her with anticipation. "You are truly doing this, aren't you?" Amora murmurs, and amends, "Truly going to let me have you like this." She allows herself a smirk, slow, halfway between enticement and warning. "I could ruin you if I told."

"No one would believe you, if you spread it like a rumor." Loki's voice is soft, still a bit shaky, but sure. "They'd believe you only if I boasted of having you, and you told them what I was leaving out. It's all in how the story is told, and it helps neither of us to start telling."

She's proud of him for knowing this, and so she rewards him with more kisses, and touches, and more and more.

*

Years ago on Nornheim, while Amora was still a student under the Nornish Queen's tutelage, Karnilla had said, "You are reticent to learn even when I am there to crack a whip over your head. Save your excuses, and when you've practiced enough to know this magic, you may show me." She turned away from Amora, a dismissal.

Amora had responded by putting her fingertips into the little fountain in Karnilla's private garden and boiling the water, boiling the delicate little fish alive, watching their soft, colorful scales and white flesh peel away from their bones, steaming.

Karnilla punished (or rewarded) her with twenty times more practice.

*

Amora makes Loki bring his tunic with him to the bedroom, rather than leaving a trail of discarded garments from the parlor. She keeps few servants, but she is being imprudent enough already.

Amora lays Loki out under her and climbs atop him; her hips roll of their own accord against his as she kisses, sucks, caresses up and down the contours of his slender body. She considers being gentle with Loki for less time than it takes for the thought to fully coalesce in her mind. This form he has created is wickedly good for her. He looks younger than she did at his age, pale and willowy where she was already curvaceous. His legs go on forever, and she wraps hers around them, skirt rucking up, rubbing her quim against the front of his trousers. It’s difficult to stop kissing him, when the noises he keeps making are so broken open.

She slides her hand down the front of Loki’s trousers and between his legs, pulling a cry out of him so needy it brings a wave of heat washing through her skin. She feels wiry curls, and unbearably soft folds, and wetness. She doesn’t know what she expected to find.

“A-Amora,” Loki whines, _actually stuttering_ , and Amora wiggles two fingers into him greedily. He practically screams, legs falling readily open, which is well and good but for the fact that he is still neglecting to remove his trousers.

Patience gone, Amora pulls her hand free and proceeds to pull the remainder of Loki’s clothes off as quickly as possible. His fingers seek her out, but she slides out of reach, further down between his legs. It’s not time for that yet. She wants to watch him come undone, first.

She surveys Loki, spread out before her, with more than a little satisfaction. Loki’s quim is as charming and flushed as the rest of him. Amora traces the curve of the hood, the bright button of his clit, and down between more folds as thick as jade leaves, dull red and shining wet. She buries her fingers in them without thinking, with sudden need, feeling the beginnings of wild delight. Gone is the quiet, polite student she has tutored in these last few months, and in his place is someone who can do the best illusions, or transformations, she has ever seen, approximating the loveliest warm needy girl Amora has laid eyes or hands on. A sound brings her eyes back up to Loki’s face—his lips red there too, and open, his eyes screwed shut and brows knitted from the pleasure or her scrutiny. There is no doubt in her mind, though, that he is _enjoying_ this.

“Is this what you like, then?” she mocks, gently. “To have a pretty girl body of your very own to play with?” When he doesn’t respond, she presses on, “You want someone to touch all of those pretty curves and get their fingers up inside you like I am—“

“ _Yes,_ ” he gasps, and she twists her fingers, flicks them fast inside him. He gives a tiny shriek before getting hold of himself. He’s perfect.

She keeps her pace until the lips of his quim are clenching tightly around her fingers, until he bends almost double coming. Amora forces herself to wait, to savor the moment; Loki is a lovely sight, dark hair fanning out on the pillow, skin pink and sheaned with sweat, tremors going through him in little waves. She pulls her dress off to fill the time.

When his breathing slows a little, she slides up his body, kissing him deeply, bracketing his hips again with her legs. “When you think you can, Loki,” she says, “I want you to do the same to me.”

To Loki’s credit, she feels fingers slide into her almost immediately.

She rides his hand while his other hand cups her hips, reaches up to play with her breasts, slides down her stomach to stroke her clit and the insides of her thighs. It feels as though he is touching her everywhere, clever, surprisingly skilled, utterly wicked, and for the final minute before her orgasm hits, Amora shuts her eyes and lets herself drown in sensation.

She collapses next to Loki when it’s over. He curls around her, and her afterglow dispels at once into cold annoyance. “Oh Loki,” she says lightly, lightly, keeping her temper in check. “This was going so well. You know it’s not about love, don’t you?”

It can’t even be said that Loki misses a beat. “I know,” he returns, in the same light measured tone, “forgive me; it’s simply very pleasant, to touch you.”

Amora smiles, settled. “You’re forgiven. You must wake in an hour to complete the lesson, do you understand?”

“Yes, Amora.”

They sleep.

*

Though pleasure may be Loki’s primary motive in sleeping with her, Amora does not believe for a moment that it is the only one. Nor does this unduly concern her—though she has made a point in her life of never sleeping with anyone she does not desire, she cannot fault this as a method for Loki to advance himself in his teacher’s favor. It’s not that risky a strategy, she supposes, for a prince. She’s done less honorable things, herself.

Immediately after her expulsion from Karnilla’s tutelage, she was snapped up by Karnilla’s most potent political opposition, those noble Nornish houses that rankled under Karnilla’s despotic rule. Indeed, she arrived in her temporary accommodation outside the royal estate to find two missives, marked with two separate aristocratic seals, waiting with her pre-delivered baggage. She dismissed loyalty to Karnilla, and the fact that she was almost certainly playing pawn to affairs of state she knew nothing about, as potential impediments to this opportunity—what had Karnilla expected, banishing her? That afternoon, and again the next morning, she stood in audience in two of the great lordly Holdings of Nornheim.

_Stood_ being the operative word—she was placed, in both cases, before an array of lords and advisors elevated on a dias. They sat; she stood. She was offered no forms of refreshment, though it was no great hardship, as each interview took less than an hour—being accustomed to Karnilla’s brand of bald-faced brutality at this point, Amora assumed that these intimidating tactics were merely traditional to Nornheim. They questioned her extensively on her skills, and also on odd details of her interactions with Karnilla, and of life in her palace. These moments were perhaps the most unsettling portions of the interviews, though they became easier when she recalled that her parents had been (and would be) no less probing when asking after her future prospects. She schooled herself into the casual aloofness that had been invaluable at her family’s dinner table, and focused on dispensing just enough information to hint that she had much more.

It worked splendidly: by the day following the second interview, the Nornish Holdings were already squabbling over her. It was fortunate, because by then word of Amora’s falling out with Karnilla had made its way back to her mother.

“Amora,” her mother greeted her at the scrying pool. Her voice was gentle, teasing, which was how she always masked her anger. “I know that I did not raise two daughters who are willing to make impolitic messes of themselves.”

“The situation with Karnilla was proving more of a liability than an advantage, at this point,” Amora said with a studied distracted air. “The rate of my learning was at a standstill, and I was a glorified assistant. Her people also hate her,” she picked up after a breath—not to seem rushed, but before her mother could open her mouth. “The Noble Holdings are colluding to undercut tribute from her kingdom, and successfully portraying her to the people as a warlord from a more barbaric age.”

She could hear the forceful, repressed little exhale out her mother’s nose, even with the echoey quality of the connection. “And these nobles, what can you establish with them? Perhaps the public nature of your little…” She searched for the word.

“The two greatest of the Holdings are already clamoring for my services,” Amora spoke into the affected pause. She didn’t want to hear what dismissive word her mother had for the debacle of the past few days. “I’m going to see what I can do about working with both of them; I’d hate to pour all of my resources into one vessel, again.” She engineered a little laugh. “Speaking of impolitic messes, how is Lorelei?”

She did not do much teaching, during her time in Nornheim—sorcerers were considered a separate class from the nobility, there, another reason for tension between its ruler and its people. That career came later, and with it, greater opportunities.

*

When Loki arrives at Amora’s rooms for study thereafter, he is a young girl again. At first, Amora thinks it’s some kind of bizarre flirtation, an invitation to sex on Amora’s terms again. But she knows Loki’s tells fairly well, and Loki sitting as he is now, absorbed in note-taking out of one of Amora’s books, has no intent toward seduction. Nor is this some ploy to shock her—it would never work, and Loki well knows how annoyed it makes Amora to feel wrong-footed. If anything, Loki seems content and relatively oblivious to Amora’s curiosity. Amora doesn’t even know how to ask what she’s wondering.

“This form is very pretty on you,” is what she finally settles for. She reaches out, tucks a lock of Loki’s hair behind his ear. He ducks his head, but she catches a glimpse of a smile she hasn’t seen before—no confident grin. Something shyer.

“Do you simply,” she overcomes her inexplicable hesitation, “like it?”

Loki meets her eyes, face calm and blank. “Do you?” he counters, lightly, carefully. Loki is asking Amora something much bigger than Amora knows, and it shows in Loki’s stillness, expectation so complete it makes Loki seem like an empty vessel, waiting to be filled up with Amora’s answer.

Amora threads her hand into Loki’s dark hair, leans down, and kisses her soft, barely-parted lips. She lingers there, warmly. “I believe I just said so,” she answers when she pulls away, at length. “Are you finished with that book?”

“Very nearly,” says Loki, quickly getting back to work.

*

Despite Amora’s best efforts, a coup never occurs on Nornheim. The Holdings underestimate Karnilla’s military acumen and her willingness to use her troops against her own people. In the end, Amora faces no reprisals; the Nornish nobility, grateful to Amora for her assistance and, she thinks, taking some pity on her youth, send her back to Asgard with their blessings and excellent references.

Being home is as frustrating as she imagined it would be. Here, she is a child again—or at least, barely a woman. There are many sorceresses here, of advanced years, greater station, and less provocative beauty. She is superfluous, politically. As a further inconvenience, Nornish recommendations don’t get her far; she is not the only Asgardian to look on Nornheim as an uncivilized backwater. It may be one of the Nine, but then, so is Jotunheim.

She finally begins to make connections among the aristocracy as a teacher of magic--ironically, when her last real teacher deemed her unfit to be even a student. But she is intelligent, focused, and young enough that her charges relate to her. She makes a name for herself among courtly families whose girls show any promise handling _seiðr_.

It was never her intent to bring herself into the orbit of the royal family.

She reflects on this on those rare occasions that she is startled with racing heart from whatever task is at hand, overwhelmed by the knowledge that she is _sleeping with the younger prince of Asgard and possible heir to the throne_ , an adolescent _child_ , and they will surely be caught. She reflects on it more often when her family expresses their pleasure at her accomplishment (barely into womanhood and in direct contact with the younger prince and the Allmother, a model daughter), or when some covetous acquaintance petitions her with stories of the part they had to play in engineering this chance for her, and laughs at her fickle luck.

The news is brought to Amora unexpectedly—the Allmother had mentioned she was seeking a new tutor for her younger son, and Amora’s name is repeated enough with praise that Queen Frigga looks into Amora’s references. It seems she is making inquiries now about Amora’s background, and would likely seek an interview soon.

Duly seeking information of her own, what Amora finds is intimidating: Prince Loki is apparently such a terror to his instructors that a number of them have _resigned_ from the royal appointment of teaching him. “He is…terribly precocious,” says one of the more discreet former tutors she can reach. “I’d even dare say he believed he knew more than I could teach him, and thus paid little mind to the lessons.” One or two are more colorful in their invective; Loki is “stubborn,” “intractable,” and “arrogant.” She is more intrigued than fazed by any of it. She’s heard many of these words directed at herself. At worst, Loki will be a smart brat of a common variety among nobility who purportedly value education.

The interview comes. It is with the Allmother herself; Amora was expecting an underling, but it seems the Queen likes to take a very personal hand in her children’s upbringing. She meets Amora in a room open to a garden courtyard, on the other side of a table with letters, tea, and a tray of small sweetbreads on it. Amora feels simultaneously overdressed for the attitude of the encounter and underdressed for the splendor of the setting, but puts that down to excitement. She holds her head high, and tries to bring warmth into her smile.

Queen Frigga is surprisingly easy to speak with, which makes the experience that much more surreal; she is regal without any trace of pettiness. It makes sense—she is the Queen, uncontested, and Amora does not expect her to behave like the people she knows. They come around to business slowly, with the Allmother asking after members of Amora’s family like she knows them, and the extent and quality of Amora’s work with the noble houses; she seems pleased when Amora offers to pour the tea. She accepts a cup, and, it seems, Amora’s qualifications.

“I was wondering, Amora,” she says when she is finished, holding Amora’s gaze, “what expectations you had for this position?”

Here Amora must tread delicately, but she thinks she has some measure of Frigga. “I understand that your son is exceptionally gifted with magic, and a quick learner. I know from experience that these are unusual traits, in a student, and ones to be treasured. I look forward to working with him.”

Frigga’s smile, still gentle, becomes sharper. It makes Amora feel on more familiar ground. “You’ve spoken to some of the others who have taught Loki, I see.”

“I thought it would be remiss of me to do no research into a position I was interested in, your Majesty.”

“I agree,” Frigga says, clearly swallowing a laugh. “You’ve heard, then, that Loki can prove a difficult pupil. What will you do, if he refuses to learn from you?”

Annoyance flares into Amora’s chest. What sort of a question is this? Her good judgment, soothing and collected as always, brings her voice forth without any steel in it. “I think I would have to know Loki better to be able to answer that question with confidence, my Queen.”

Far from being alarmed at her momentary loss of temper, Queen Frigga warms to Amora again. After a few more questions, she stands, and offers her hand. Amora takes it, and bows over it.

“I will contact you in two days with my decision,” she says, and smiles again, full of kindness. Amora’s hand itches. “I’m glad I had the chance to meet you today, Amora. It is hard for a mother, when she realizes she can’t teach her children everything; but I think I should be happy to see what you have to teach mine.”

*

“Powerful men,” said Amora’s mother, “love having a beautiful woman on their arm, for the same reason wealthy women wear jewelry.” She looked at Amora and Lorelei in turn, making sure she had their attention. “To showcase their power.”

“Even father?” Lorelei asked, laughing like she always did.

“Especially your father.”

Remembering this, Amora does not know why her mother chose to tell her young daughters something so bitter. Perhaps her parents were going through some trouble, at the time. This memory stands brightly in her mind without context, one of few times she remembers her mother imparting advice.

Amora is deeply grateful for her mother: she is driven, and cunning, and saw fit to raise her daughters to embrace those traits. She succeeded with one of them, at least—as Amora grew, she followed more and more of the discussions, the plans her parents made together. Then she became included in them.

The gift for magic that Amora and Lorelei shared was nurtured, although—or possibly because—it surpassed their mother’s understanding. It was tremendously useful, magic. It could be used to enhance beauty or any number of other illusions; it could charm nearly anyone to a state of amiability, even love (or something like it); it could heal, too, but none of the women who taught Amora ever showed much interest in healing magic, and Amora never cared enough to broach the subject. And of course, when the sisters began to show proficiency in more advanced arts—evocation and transfiguration, the raw bending of matter—their mother fostered their education in whatever ways she could, eventually sending Amora to Nornheim for the remainder of her childhood.

Amora knows her mother wishes her to be no man’s trinket. So she studies, and she weaves her own schemes, and makes many friends, and learns how to do her mother proud.

*

_Loki is so much more interesting like this,_ Amora thinks. As a girl, Amora means, though she is interesting in bed, too, which is where Amora presently has her. Loki lets her do things that a good teacher shouldn’t be allowed and that a worthy prince of Asgard definitely shouldn’t allow. She's a little grateful that Loki is so hungry for her, because sometimes she will think, distractedly, of the curve of Loki's breasts or hips, or how Loki's eyes shut tight when she's close to coming--it's a good thing Loki wants this so much, because it would be so vexing to have known what it was like to fuck Loki once and be denied it after. 

At the moment, Loki is spread out under Amora with Amora’s newest toy—an artificial phallus Amora has strapped to her body to fuck like a man—sliding in and out of her at Amora’s favorite, ruthlessly hard pace. She’s doing an admirable job not screaming. More’s the pity, but Amora enjoys the way Loki gets when she’s keeping quiet--seized with full-body shakes until Amora slows, lets her catch her breath and open her eyes like she’s surfacing, only to shut them tight again in a silent scream as Amora quickens. Amora kisses her one more time, then shows mercy, grabbing Loki’s hips and pulling them hard against hers, locking them together with Amora inside. Loki comes at once, as she always does when Amora tries to get impossibly close that way.

Amora picks up the thought again later, after they’ve rested and cleaned themselves up and Loki has been sent away. Loki is so much more interesting like this, a girl Amora can play with on much more level terms than a boy who would be used and discarded in exchange for the ways he would try to use and discard Amora; not only as a bedmate, but in study and in conversation. Truthfully, Amora wouldn’t have bothered talking much beyond lessons if Loki had not chosen to show this side of herself.

As it is, Amora has more fun with Loki than she’d ever expected. Just last week Loki made some remark about the obfuscating minutiae of runecasting that Amora had frequently thought but never voiced, and certainly never voiced with that _particular_ delivery that had made Amora lose the course of her lesson laughing. They’d distracted themselves for an hour after that gossiping: how comically seriously their respective mothers take divination, what a nasty little beast Fandral is and _how_ does he charm even half the girls he says he has, he probably makes half of them up—a scattering of topics, barely not speaking over each other. Amora is glad that they never speak of Thor, harboring a small crush even as she mounts Loki on a regular basis. Even though as Loki’s brother he must be a source of endless frustration, Loki apparently has a tacit understanding that he is not fair game.

Everyone else is. Three days ago Loki strode into Amora’s parlor with a tense, regal air, placed her books neatly on the central table, and told Amora that she wanted to learn an incantation to engender love. Or lust, either one.

“It’s highly advanced,” says Amora with her brows raised, truthfully. “I was thinking to delve into that theory in a month or two, if you showed proficiency with—well, three other topics you usually need to master first.”

“I would like to learn it as soon as possible,” says Loki, hands folded neatly on the tabletop and back still perfectly straight. She offers no further explanation. And why would she. She’s a prince. She’s _Loki_. She’s also arrived angry, for reasons unknown.

“What are you planning to use it for?” Amora asks, intrigued.

Loki tries to summon a sly smile, marred by her obvious distress. A master shapeshifter and illusionist, and Amora has yet to train her to control her expression. “Ingolf seems to think his judgment as a lover is so unassailable that he can critique anyone. He doesn’t know about us,” Loki adds before Amora can become alarmed. “He seems to think I ‘couldn’t charm a frost giant,’ if his words with Dagr are to be believed.”

Amora stares, not quite understanding. “Gracious, my dear, you’re truly worked up over this.”

Loki rolls her eyes, but cracks a smile. “There was _more_. Including being of the opinion that you could charm anyone you wanted, and _would_ , including frost giants, and that no one in their right mind would desire to keep you after.”

Amora is less miffed about the commentary than about the fact that she hadn’t realized Ingolf thought particularly little of her. She’s generally got a better estimate of the regard of others, and prides herself on this. “Well, it seems we have quite a bit of ground to cover. I assume you have no plans today?”

Loki’s face lights up with a nasty grin. “Just this one.”

Amora dredges up all knowledge of the spells her mother taught her years back, and Loki learns with her usual acumen, and it goes off splendidly; Ingolf alienates half his immediate comrades with his attentions before making advances on a girl too young and too high in station to avoid repercussions. The irony is not lost on Amora.

Perhaps it’s this realization, and the reckless pleasure and power Amora feels in bending another’s desires, that prompt her next suggestion: they should practice these spells, if Loki is to retain what she’s learned. “We can’t simply enchant all who cross our path—the pattern will be noticed. Perhaps we could perfect our form on each other.”

Loki fails to conceal her interest. “I already want you. How would you know it worked?”

“There is more than just one kind of enchantment,” says Amora, falling easily into the teacher’s cadence. “Some inspire amity, without any great desire, and are useful for defusing tense situations. Objects carrying this kind of glamour were outlawed on Asgard, but diplomats still use them in other realms where they will go unnoticed. The kind we placed on Ingolf largely inspires infatuation and a more general desire. These two would indeed be pointless to practice on you, smitten with me as you already are.” She snickers at the face Loki makes. “However, there are enchantments to incite more acute lust with or without the accompanying infatuation. Those could increase your want to _need_ in a matter of moments,” She leans close, voice dropping to a murmur. “I could even get you to beg, I’m sure.”

Loki’s eyes are wide and dark, even as she looks at Amora askance. “It would have to be very good.”

“Or even weep.” Amora grins, tapping a finger against her chin in mock consideration. “You’re very pretty when you’re desperate, did you know? I’m looking forward to this very much.”

“What are you waiting for, if you’re not bluffing? You can gloat _after_ you’ve made me beg.” Loki juts out her chin and narrows her eyes, a combination Amora recognizes as actual indignation. “Show me what you can do,” says Loki, cuttingly, and Amora feels a little candle-flame of contrariness light in her head as Loki slides hands over Amora’s hips, brings her lips up to Amora’s. Amora pulls Loki’s face just far enough away to whisper the words of the spell into her open mouth.

The resultant choking, then gasping, then deep, shaky breathing is glorious. Loki buckles at the knees, and twitches wherever her slumped body meets Amora’s, as though Amora is made of hot metal, before seeking more contact. Her hands can’t seem to unclench from Amora’s dress. Amora gathers her up, cups her face to inspect her dilated pupils, the brightness of color in her cheeks. Loki is trembling, and leaning palpably into Amora’s hand, but besides panting, no sound comes from her half-open mouth.

Good, Amora thinks. It would be unsatisfying to have proved the point so easily.

“You’re such a sensitive little thing,” Amora purrs, relishing the way fury springs back into Loki’s eyes. “But then, that’s half the fun.”

“Evidently not as much as you’d hoped.” Loki’s voice is all aplomb, even if she looks a mess. “I wouldn’t call this need, yet.”

Amora laughs at her ridiculous stubbornness. She can truly empathize. “Really? When did you become so practiced at self-denial? Unless perhaps you just like it, in which case you can get on your knees and bury that composed tongue in my quim until you’re ready to join in the fun.” She takes Loki’s soft moan as assent, and pulls her over to the nearest chair, and down to the floor before her as she sits. Amora pulls her skirts up and spreads her legs comfortably; she catches Loki staring at Amora’s quim like a starving man at a banquet. She probably can’t help it under that spell, poor girl, but the effect is comical. Amora tilts Loki’s chin up to meet her eyes.

“Now,” she says genially, “I don’t want you speaking at all unless you’re ready to beg, understand? We’re not wasting more time arguing.” Amora sits back, surveys the scene, and settles with a smile. “Begin when you’re ready.”

From the moment Loki gets her mouth on Amora, she’s moaning as though Amora is the one on the floor servicing her. She buries her face as though she’s trying to smother herself; her movements take on a somnambulant quality, long, slow strokes, probing deep and _seeking_ and instinctive like something outside consciousness; the only sounds she makes are throat-deep moans and heavy breaths and wet, soft sounds. Amora finds herself almost hypnotized, as though the quiet and the slow, thorough touches are opening up new corners of her awareness. Her whole body feels raw and buzzing. She is unsure whether she has lost the urgency to come, or has surpassed it with a deeper kind of need as she rocks against Loki’s mouth, tangles fingers in her hair and drinks in the full-body shudders Loki gives each time Amora scrapes her fingernails along Loki’s scalp.

The need for more seems to build suddenly, her quim tightening. She rocks faster, and Loki, responsive and lost and whimpering, picks up speed as well. Her panting is coming faster and even harder, now, breathless gasps between licking into Amora and sucking at her clit with a dizzying sort of focus. Amora feels rubbed almost to overstimulation, aching, slick well down her thighs, and nearly mad with desire for something more. She takes hold of Loki’s hair and pulls her head back, away.

Loki cries out desperately. Though she is looking at Amora’s face, her eyes are unfocused, wild. When Amora asks her if she will beg now, it seems to take a moment to sink in. Then, looking frightened and surprised, as though betrayed by her own actions, she shakes her head.

Amora giggles. “Thank the Norns for that,” she says, giddy. “I have an idea. Lie on the floor.”

Loki complies, and Amora scrambles to get her knees on either side of Loki’s face. “Can you do this?” she asks, and sinks down at the start of Loki’s nod.

What starts as a steady rocking loses all restraint quickly and Amora is grinding down, pressing Loki into the floor. She’s going to kill her, to hurt her like this or let her die or go mad from denial, and she can barely even care because it’s everything to get her legs more open, to have Loki _deeper_. “Get your fingers inside me,” she gasps, and then yes, she’s being filled and it’s perfect and her whole body is clenching and coming until her vision goes black.

Awareness returns to her on her back on the floor, Loki lying beside her. Amora turns to look at her. There is something in Loki’s eyes that looks broken, rattled apart by too much need. Amora pulls her close unthinkingly, kisses and kisses and kisses and kisses her and strokes her hair and back and the slight curves of her hips and legs and breasts and shoulders. She feels the urgency become coherent again in the way Loki moves on her, rubbing her entire still-clothed body against Amora, wetness soaking through her leggings and onto Amora’s already slick thigh. Amora keeps kissing, keeps touching, slides one hand inside Loki’s clothes and two fingers inside Loki’s quim, whispering encouragement and praises. When Loki comes, she thrashes so hard Amora has to wrap an arm around her waist to hold her still, and she screams at the top of her lungs.

She does not once beg.

*

Amora lived in Karnilla’s palace for some years—not long, for an Asgardian, but longer when one is young. She tries to remember when she spoke to Karnilla, outside her lessons with her, and on what subjects. Sometimes they would converse over dinner, during those rare times when Karnilla bothered to appear for her courtiers. Those could not rightly be called conversations; everyone around the Nornish Queen was so stilted and afraid that Karnilla simply laughed outright at their stuttering, on occasion.

Sometimes Karnilla would task Amora with some minor magical problem to be solved in her kingdom, combining learning with true work, and they did speak with substance then. Not just about the magic, or about their mutual connections, but about wider things: about the respective positions of sorceresses on Asgard and Nornheim—simultaneously necessary and devalued as an effeminate profession, the only real difference between realms being the willingness of the highest classes to dabble in it—and about Karnilla’s disaffection with Asgard. It was the first time Amora had heard about Asgard from someone who wasn’t Asgardian. The level of rancor involved was enlightening, if unsurprising. Like every other child of the generation following the Jotun war, Amora had learned that the more violent races didn’t always appreciate the Allfather’s authoritative rule, and Karnilla was one of the most violent people Amora had ever met. Karnilla intimated on more than one occasion that she desired to rule Nornheim independently of the Nine, confirming Amora’s opinion that she was far too heavy-handed in her methods. It was well and good for a _dictator_ to think of utterly uprooting the balance of power, Amora supposed, rather than playing within the rules as the lesser nobility had to. She just couldn’t bring herself to think so highly of Karnilla for it as Karnilla herself obviously did. 

She can never quite understand, looking back, why Karnilla had been willing to speak so freely of her dissent around Amora, an Asgardian. To say that Karnilla underestimated her was not quite right—she spoke to Amora levelly then, rather than in the impatient tone she used when she wanted something done promptly. She spoke as though this were something she especially wanted Amora to hear and heed.

It’s not as though Karnilla’s teachings completely lacked merit. Amora learned more magic than she would ever realistically use, as a noble woman of Asgard, but which had serendipitously become necessary for a career in teaching: summoning, transfiguration, and battle magic. A disproportionate amount of battle magic, Amora thought, since Karnilla had a slew of lower class mages working in her army, and an apprentice was supposed to be a more sophisticated tool. Karnilla was of the opinion that Amora should be “able to do everything that they can do and do it better, and more,” though, so Amora learned to shoot fire, cold, lightning, and pure force from her fingertips as well as more subtle workings to inflict pain at a touch. These last were very like the spells she had learned to induce pleasure, and so came easily; it garnered her some rare, untarnished praise from Karnilla. Amora knew better than to feel grateful to her instructor for deigning to see her potential, but it had still felt like a victory.

New magic aside, even, Amora learned much. She soon discovered that Karnilla had become the sole ruler of Nornheim through powerful ambition and relentless drive, which she worked hard to instill in her student. She expected Amora to have read and comprehended the small library she was given within a few years, and put her on a practice regimen for forms and concentration as rigorous as the martial training she assigned her soldiers—on one memorable occasion, she even advised Amora to take up a sword and practice, if her arms were so weak that doing spell forms tired them! Amora had never worked so hard in her life. Retrospectively, it was good to learn how to push herself, even if most of what she pushed was her stamina and her patience.

It’s very different with Loki; she is learning rapidly, through creative application of magic, concepts studied out of order as often as not. This is why Amora’s dwelling on it now, she supposes, when she hasn’t thought long on it in the years between, on Nornheim or Asgard. But Amora remembers when Karnilla also said, “Show me what you can do,” and Amora, powerful even in the teeth of her anger, showed her.

It was a potent working—one to transmit the spirit of one living being to another shell. It had been issued as a challenge by Karnilla, after the incident with the fish. “Of course you could kill those little things,” she’d smiled, looking almost baffled by Amora’s fierce insistence that this was proof of her hard work and skill. “I’ve had you evoking heat for months; it would be incredible if you couldn’t. I would be impressed if you could do anything with a life besides ending it.”

The unspoken insult, _including yours_ , was enough to drive Amora through four weeks of little but research and experimentation. There was quite a lot to teach herself in the way of this kind of magic—some of it was tied into healing magic, on which Amora’s education was scarce, so she had to start from the very basics. But she was diligent, and enraged, and a month later was standing proudly over her workspace with the body of a formerly dead hunting falcon now safely housing the soul of a very confused dog, and Karnilla looking on.

“This shouldn’t have worked,” were the first words she said, after a long minute surveying the spellspace Amora had set up.

“And yet, it did,” said Amora with rising satisfaction. “Not all the components were physical, you see. This method required a certain amount of intuitive catalysis—the conviction that it would work plays a part in making it work.” She had loved that touch, when she had thought it out—not only did it make for more versatile capabilities of the spell, it was a perfect way to thumb one’s nose at skeptics. What sorcerer didn’t enjoy that?

“Then the spell is useless to anyone without your overinflated sense of confidence, it seems,” sighed Karnilla. “There are ways to do this with mathematical precision, and more reliability.”

Amora didn’t realize that the heat and trembling rage were in her skin until she already burst out, “By the Allfather, you are a miserable teacher.” It was appalling, and incredibly foolish to indulge this crude impulse to insult her benefactor, and she wouldn’t have gone on—but her head was buzzing with rage and Karnilla was smiling and raising her brows in that way that was surprised and deeply amused. Amora wanted to forgo magic entirely and just slap her. “You’re unimaginative, petty, and care more about thinking you’re in the right than about actually teaching.”

“As if I don’t have better things to do,” Karnilla began, shaking her head wonderingly, “than teach an Asgardian brat who has never had to lift a finger because she can always wave her breasts at some man until he does whatever she wants. I’m doing you—and your wretched, conniving parents—a favor by spending any time with you at all.”

“You _would_ think of it so simply,” snapped Amora. “If you knew anything about charming anyone your people wouldn’t hate you so much.” She felt dizzy with adrenaline, though more because she spoke out to Karnilla, of all people, than because she regretted a word of it. She meant the words with all her heart.

The shift in Karnilla’s face was subtle, but Amora could see it stung. Karnilla drew back a little, seeming to collect herself. “You are ungrateful. But of course, you are the age for it. I was the same way toward my mother, at your age. You will look back on this and realize what a disorderly little bitch you’re being now. Or you will continue as you are—but your failure to commit yourself to learning is hardly my problem.” She turned away from Amora, for the final time. “I will see to it that your things are packed and sent to a venue of your choosing. You’ll leave tomorrow.”

She had nowhere to go; she was on a foreign world and her only ally was a hated despot. She hadn’t started to care yet, because she could finally see that she was better than a child struggling to please an unmovable mentor.

That was the end of that chapter of Amora’s life.

*

Going to all the way to Vanaheim isn’t strictly necessary to find components of suitable quality for a sleeping elixir, but it is certainly the most interesting option. The sights and sounds are refreshing, and the Vanir seem to make a point of treating Asgardians with a disinterested sort of courtesy. Loki dislikes the flavor of it, but Amora thinks it adds an air of exciting anonymity to their journey—they can do what they like, if they aren’t being catered to at every moment. Loki is female, and therefore unrecognizable despite the differences from her male face being subtle; Amora is only notable back home. They are just two of many rich, young Asgardian tourists sneaking around the Nine for adventure.

Perhaps they are getting carried away with it, because they are behaving like a couple of girls in love. Loki catches Amora’s hand to drag her to a stall, pointing out a pattern her mother weaves that no Aesir woman does—the Queen is of Vanaheim originally, Amora remembers—and then neither of them lets go. Amora finds herself smiling and laughing, falling into the part without knowing why. It’s easy; it’s fun. Loki is falling in too, indulging the young girl who has never run through a marketplace with a friend. It makes Amora almost feel that she has been greedy to keep Loki at books and in bed all the times she sees her.

A young merchantman selling cheap jewelry calls them over, and they go. “You’re both so beautiful!” he gushes, over-the-top; a sales pitch, not a come-on. “It’s completely unacceptable that you don’t have some pretty jewelry.” He fishes around his stall, and holds up brassy earrings toward Amora. “These make a statement! Or perhaps something more elegant,” he continues when she laughs. “Or for you, young lady?” He smiles more tenderly for Loki, whose laugh is a little less haughty and a little more breathless. “A pendant? No, no, wait—“ he procures a little silver ring, simple, with some kind of iridescent stone laid in the band, and holds it out for her like a lover offering a token. After a moment of delicate hesitation, she takes it, and pays, and thanks him.

They walk for some moments in comfortable silence before Amora asks Loki, “You liked it when he flirted with you, didn’t you?”

“It’s the same way you act for noblemen at functions,” she responds, a cheerful tone covering careful neutrality.

Amora takes her hand again. “I’m not jealous, my dear. Not when you’re clearly staring at me all through court functions.” She grins, and tries to think of how to begin. She already feels too much like her mother, all probing questions and light, dangerous reassurances, but perhaps that’s inevitable for this kind of talk. “You do understand that I act that way for men because it’s terrifically useful? More than just being friendly with them, I mean. Men will do very many things for you—all manner of brute work, even killing—if you give them the slightest hope that you will sleep with them. You know what they want—you must simply find the way to use it.”

Loki looks thoughtful, listening, until she posits, “Mother never has to.” Amora remembers her mother saying _Especially your father._

“That’s all very well, as she’s a queen,” says Amora testily. “But when you are a woman, you can’t be the Prince.”

“I know,” says Loki, so clipped it makes Amora think she might have finally gone too far.

The silence is more tangibly awkward, this time. Then Loki starts again, softly. “It’s an amusing change sometimes, not being the Prince. Fewer people flatter you. That merchant—even if he was flirting with me to sell something, he chose flirtation as his method, when he could have simply been polite.”

It makes Amora feel strange, being reminded of how young Loki is, but it’s better than fighting. Relieved, Amora interjects, “That’s what I’m getting at. You needn’t feel…as though he has paid you some special heed just by showing you attention.” Loki has gone still, looking as caught out as Amora inexplicably feels. She gathers herself and rephrases, “Women like us needn’t lower ourselves for men who only want one thing and say pretty words to get it; you’re clever and talented and deserve much better.”

Despite including herself in the compliment, the effect is not much better; Loki’s eyes are practically shining as she looks at Amora, a little smile creeping unheeded onto her lips. Amora has no idea how this conversation has been bungled so badly.

It’s only for the space of a blink, though—Loki grins, tosses her hair, and says sardonically, “I think you might be the one person in the Nine Realms who understands me.” She holds out an arm for Amora, and they are walking and talking casually once again. Amora is grateful that Loki possesses the grace to salvage that exchange. She tries to settle her heart.

*

She will see what other pupils she can take on. It will be less easy to overinvest herself in Loki’s progress that way, and give her more outlets for her intellectual energies. She will speak with her family, and see what other connections she can forge.

When she visits again she finds her house in turmoil. Her parents are united in opinion of the source of the grief: Lorelei has finally gotten them all into a mess they can’t get out of easily. The way Amora’s mother tells it, Lorelei sought a private appointment with the Jarl of Glitnir, claiming she had information for his ears only. She then enchanted him into doing her bidding and bringing her to his bed. It took only a few hours for those close to the Jarl to grow suspicious of his erratic behavior and deduce the cause, so after a mere half-day of wallowing in her stolen luxury, Lorelei was imprisoned by warriors of the Jarl.

The story leaves Amora spluttering. Her mother’s face is a mixture of recognition and sympathy—she probably reacted similarly upon receiving the news. “I knew my sister was foolish and easily bored, but this is—“ Amora fumbles for words for a few moments before her mother supplies, “Uniquely idiotic.”

“Just so,” says Amora, breathless with disbelief. “What possessed her?” It’s not as though the Jarl could provide Lorelei with anything her family couldn’t. 

“You can ask her yourself,” says her mother, “when you go to plead her case before the Allfather.”

_What?!_ Amora nearly demands, before following her mother’s logic. It is customary for the King to mediate disputes among his nobility, and Amora is the member of her family with the most direct and favorable ties to the King. Amora nods assent, and her mother smiles.

Lorelei has been moved from the custody of the Jarl’s men to that of the royal family; because this is her first infraction, and because of her age and status, she is under watch in a sparsely furnished room of the palace rather than in the dungeons. It is a little less spacious and a little more bare than Amora’s quarters, but otherwise there is little difference; Amora feels her resentment build.

Lorelei greets her with a cocky smile. “Amora! It’s been much too long since I’ve seen you, dear sister.” It’s unbelievable, but then, Lorelei always is.

Amora takes a deep breath. “What I don’t understand,” she says evenly, “is how you possibly thought you could get away with it. Those spells are for a night of fun with a stranger, or for the lowly and weak-minded, not for seducing a Jarl and brazenly using him for the few hours it takes to be thrown in prison.”

“He _was_ weak-minded,” snaps Lorelei. She recovers her smile. “And truthfully, I couldn’t think of a way to get away with it either.”

Amora stares, dumbfounded. She feels she has lost the thread of this conversation somewhere, or perhaps Lorelei thinks she’s implying something more obviously than she is. Lorelei must see this in Amora’s face, because she continues impatiently, “I accepted that I would be caught. I’d already gotten what I wanted, and I decided to deal with the next part as it came. And really, judging by what I’ve seen,” she glances around at the comfortable room, “it doesn’t seem like the worst thing.”

“You destroyed your entire family’s reputation to sleep with a man.” Amora hears her voice come out leaden.

“Games of station are your games, not mine,” says Lorelei with a sigh. “I have other concerns. It’s hardly my fault that the court would hold all of you accountable for my actions, anyway.”

“ _You stupid little girl,_ ” hisses Amora. “The only way they _wouldn’t_ is if we publicly disowned you and let you bear the consequences of your actions entirely alone, be that in the dungeons or on the streets. Were you prepared to _deal_ with _that_?”

Lorelei’s smile is entirely gone. Her eyes are a little wide, though she is trying to look determined. “Yes,” she says, “I think I could be.”

Amora leaves her. She is a stupid child and Amora doesn’t have any more patience for her false courage or her selfishness. As though she could possibly be prepared to accept that utter rejection, worthless disaster though she might be, much less carry on with no support—

“Lady Amora,” says the Allmother, not ten feet from her.

Amora drops to a knee hastily in greeting. “My Queen.” Was she thinking aloud as she walked? “I apologize for my inattentiveness.”

“Please rise,” says Frigga. “I take it you spoke with your sister?”

Amora’s mouth feels dry. “Yes, Allmother,” she begins, and falters. Even if she wanted to defend Lorelei, she would not know how.

“How is she?” asks Frigga gently, and Amora’s gaze nearly snaps up to Frigga’s face in shock. “She was guarded around me, but I assume she might have spoken more plainly to her sister.”

“She is—she is well, your Majesty.” Besides being completely unrepentant. Still, Amora remembers her duty. “I don’t know what she said to you, but I’m sorry for any lack of cooperation she has shown you.”

Frigga pauses, and Amora can feel the Queen looking at her as though trying to think where to begin. “If you worry for her,” says Frigga, “I can assure you that her punishment will be relatively lenient. The use of this kind of magic is no trivial matter, and cannot be condoned in the least. But when a young girl barely even a woman goes to bed with a person well into adulthood, it’s not my instinct that she bears sole responsibility. There is more to be known, about this.”

Amora feels sick to her stomach. She tries desperately not to think of Loki, for fear that Frigga will see something of it in her face.

Frigga, looking at Amora with badly veiled pity, misinterprets her expression. “We will discover the truth, for your sister’s sake. And for that I must ask--” she quiets her voice slightly--“what are your parents’ opinions on this?”

“They condemn it, utterly,” Amora answers quickly. It’s the truth, and Amora feels more than a little anger at the implication. As though Lorelei didn’t have a mind of her own.

“I assume so. Did they have any hopes of Lorelei finding a sponsor, or mentor, or a husband—something your sister could have wished to act on, however unwisely?”

So it is the Allmother, rather than the Allfather, who will be mediating this dispute. This is turning out to be unpleasant in altogether different ways than Amora anticipated. “None that I knew of,” she is able to say with confidence. “Our mother’s greatest hope for us is to foster our magic, before our marriageability.”

Amora sees her mistake the moment she says it. Beneath her poise, Frigga is beginning to look disturbed. “This kind of magic,” she says, “did your mother teach it to you?” _To you,_ Amora notices, not _to Lorelei_.

“No!” Amora blurts, reeling, trying to think of how to turn her very real distress into the fabric of a viable defense. “My Queen, I’m sorry, I don’t know where Lorelei learned these things, or who she’s been consorting with—she was always jealous that she couldn’t cast like I can, always wanted to catch up, but I never thought she would—“ She trails off, breath heaving a little. The tremor she feels beneath her skin is too real, but it works. Frigga takes Amora’s hands in her own.

“Enough, child,” she says, with supreme gentleness. “This is not your doing. What you’ve told me today is of great help, to me and to your sister. Please take the time you need to be with your family.”

“Yes, your Majesty.” She bends over Frigga’s hands, then goes as quickly as she can.

She thinks she dealt with that well enough, and she will think of a way to convey the exchange to her mother that omits how grievously she stumbled, but the nearness of her mistakes—all of them—haunts her. What Lorelei did has been played off as a childish and intensely selfish act, and an embarrassment for which Amora’s family will still likely pay some collective price; what Amora has done, if she were caught, is inexcusable. Her actions are clearly calculated: she is older than Loki, and the better sorceress, and it is she who has used enchantments on Loki, rather than the reverse. Furthermore, Loki is a prince; the simplest explanation for what Amora has done is that she is taking advantage of her position as a teacher to try for some measure of power in the royal family.

What _is_ she doing, really?

It’s not that she fears that Loki will spill their secret—she is incredibly circumspect, and has nearly as much to lose as Amora does. The true source of danger lies with perceptive outsiders—there is no way the Allmother hasn’t noticed Loki’s frequent absences, or growing power. And if she is to be honest with herself, they’ve already become reckless. Loki allowing herself to be a woman with any witness is alone enough to lose Loki any claim to his station. But she has made Amora complicit as well; Amora has taught Loki dangerous, illegal magics that they’ve practiced on each other, and jointly on other people; Amora is fucking her student and a _child_ of the royal family.

Thanks to Loki, Amora has something of a taste for all of this, now.

*

She loves making Loki shake. She thinks it might be her favorite part of sex with this girl.

It’s such a telling act: when Amora uses her best tricks Loki shakes like she can’t figure out how to stop, but doesn’t pull away. Loki is too unrelentingly aware of all her own vulnerabilities to not know how much power she gives Amora over her. Perhaps she has not admitted to herself that continuing their liaisons in the face of that amounts to a sort of trust. Amora wonders, on occasion, how long Loki can deny this, when she has shared such a wealth of her secrets with Amora. Her desire and talent for more sinister magic; her ruthless and creative wit; her body (previously untouched, Amora is quite sure); her womanhood; the list is as illicit as it is intimate, and the combination is a thrilling one. There are many reasons Amora persists, despite her worries—getting away with it is a reason of itself.

Being with Loki has been a learning experience for her, moreso than with any previous student. She never knew before that she could find such an incomparable rush of joy in touching things forbidden, much less a persistent hunger for them. It is more than just Loki herself that she craves; it’s the quiet wreckage she brings in her wake. She does not simply look at people as pieces to be moved in a game of strategy, as is familiar to Amora. Loki does not move her pawns to an end; she charms them, tricks them, and destroys them for spite, or curiosity, or fun. Karnilla may have been a queen, and a cruel one, but Amora didn’t learn about the casual exercise of power from _her_.

Now, she finds herself playing mental games with nearly everyone, Loki included--Loki falls for very few of them, of course, but Amora treasures it when she does. Amora has always taken satisfaction in knowing just how much or how little a person likes her, but she’s expanded this knowledge into a kind of hobby, seeing how thoroughly she can charm the people she privately detests—sometimes even using this to ruin them. She never would have had the confidence or the ambition to try this, but for seeing how well Loki manages it. Loki, whether she likes it or not, is magnificent at giving the impression of harmlessness—of studious duty, or youth, mischief rather than malice. Loki does it less for the thrill of the act than of simply surviving life in Thor’s shadow, Amora knows—better to let no further darkness show to those who would already compare the two in Loki’s disfavor.

Amora supposes that this is one of the few advantages she has, on a Loki’s higher station. She is allowed outlets for her own nastiness in ways that Loki isn’t; she has more flexibility within what she can do without drawing attention to herself. Having secured her parents’ satisfaction with her position and progress, she is essentially given free reign of her life. Thankfully, Loki is a clever girl, and finds ways to work within what small margins of secrecy she has, and so together they can tear each other apart in the ways each of them wants.

She pulls herself from these thoughts, refocusing on Loki, intent over spellwork across the table. The glow of _seidr_ lights up her face ethereally. Amora leans forward, letting the neckline of her gown slip down, and Loki’s eyes flick up to her for just a moment before she returns to her work, smirking and breathing deep. “Loosen your wrists,” says Amora, “the way you do when I pin them down.”

Loki’s whole body goes tense; then she does _precisely_ what she is told. Amora feels heat rushing to her cheeks far quicker than expected. She moves behind Loki.

“I hope you know you are something of a treasure,” she murmurs into Loki’s ear. This is one of the best games she plays, dropping these little compliments to her student and feeling Loki move her whole back flush against Amora’s body.

“You say that to all your pretty students, I’m sure,” says Loki, a little breathless. Amora laughs, and places a kiss under her ear, playing indulgence to the hilt.

“No, my dear, just you.” This is her favorite game: whispering sweet nothings and having Loki know exactly what she means by them. Any other girl Loki’s age would have developed a foolish crush, by now—or more of one. Amora knows this is somewhat callous, but Loki knows how to keep herself in check. She’s perfect, and Amora gets her hands up Loki’s tunic as soon as she’s done with the spell, part reward and part celebration.

Later, under the table and winded, Amora says, “There are moments when I’m selfishly glad you have to keep your quim secreted away. I’d be loath to have to split your time with anyone else.”

Loki laughs in the way that means she’s hurting, little. “No, my dear,” she says sardonically, but then her voice turns soft. “Just you.”

Loki knows what she’s doing with that, and it’s a fair barb, given Amora’s, but Amora feels like she’s stepped into empty air. She sits up. “Now, now,” she says, pulling on her dress, “truce.”

“Did Karnilla ever do this with you?” Loki asks, cheerfully, and Amora nearly falls over whipping her head to stare at her. Loki’s smiling too brightly, elbow propped on the floor and chin in hand. “Drag your heart along behind her like a leashed animal, I mean, as I’m fairly certain she never slept with you. You just talk about her like she was a parent; when you talk about her you sound like Thor does when he talks about Odin.”

The words that come out of Amora’s mouth next feel not entirely of her doing. “If you are not dressed and out of this room in ten seconds, I will light your hair on fire.” 

Loki snatches her shed garments in a bundle, runs to the nearest mirror, and is gone in the blink of an eye by the time Amora gets to seven.

Nevertheless, that’s Amora’s day ruined. She dresses, and paces, and restrains herself from breaking any of her things. This is the problem she keeps coming back to, with Loki—she is so caught up in the pleasures of Loki’s company that she tends to forget the ways that her conception of this arrangement really is too good to be true. Be it for the increasing risk of getting caught or Loki’s wretched _feelings_ \--

Her words, too, could have had some kind of glamour in them, because they remain invasive in Amora’s mind. When does she even _speak_ of Karnilla? What gave Loki these impressions? For all that the parallel is ridiculous, she can’t help but dwell on the final argument she had with her former instructor, and its similarities to this one—she lashed out just as Loki did, to similar effect. She tries, reflexively, to reject the thought.

_Oh come now, you haven’t resolved on anything so final as leaving Loki,_ she thinks, even as her stomach lurches with uncertainty. She hasn’t, but she has to admit, she’s been considering it for some time. Under the surface, her unease has been growing. Loki, with her secrets, her station, and her sharp perception, might be too much to manage indefinitely. She sits, for the first time in the past...the past while, feeling as though some dreaded thing has stopped chasing her. Her thoughts are stilling. Yes. She has been considering this. The weight of it sinks from her chest to her stomach, and she feels a little pang of disgust at the feeling, like she’s swallowed a stone.

But what to do about it? She has at last let herself think logically about the matter, so now there’s nothing for it but to surrender it to her judgment. She sits with it into the evening, while the magical lights of the palace build in brightness. She turns over each option carefully.

Her decision is not made that day, or the next. In the end, she is ashamed to admit—and so she doesn’t, when she looks back—the choice is not made by her. She receives word that her efforts to seek other positions have borne out. A highborn mage of Alfheim seeks her services as assistant, rather than an instructor. It is an opportunity to further her own study that she could never have anticipated, and cannot reasonably surpass, considering its rarity. She must resign as Loki’s teacher, and leave Asgard.

*

When she meets with Frigga to explain the circumstances of her resignation, she thinks for a single, fleeting moment that what she sees in the Queen’s face is relief. Amora will never be sure of this, and after that, Frigga is all rueful smiles and kind words. She thanks Amora for her service to the royal family, and wishes her the very best in her continued career, and asks when Amora plans her final departure.

Amora requests three more days; “And a greater portion of Loki’s time, for that span, if at all possible—we have a few lessons I yet hope to conclude.” Frigga grants her this. There is no effusive parting beyond that, and Amora feels strangely vindicated, and calmer than she ever has in the Queen’s presence. It is satisfying to achieve this closure.

Parting with Loki will be trickier. Loki will be upset with her; Amora has been her best teacher yet, among other things. But, no one keeps any teacher forever, Amora reminds herself, to tamp down the little swell of guilt in her stomach. Loki is going to come of age very soon; it would be ridiculous for her to keep clinging to Amora’s skirts.

Of course, since their last interlude, Amora can’t be certain that Loki will listen to reason. She’s not even angry, anymore, so much as disappointed. She’s tried to be clear with Loki about the nature of their relationship.

Still, she can’t leave without seeing Loki again, and she can’t leave without clearing the air. She begins a note twice before simply writing “Please return to my chambers today—I need to speak with you,” before signing it, sealing it, and sending it off with a courier. She tries to think of the best way to break the news.

It can’t be more than half an hour before Loki appears in front of the same mirror she fled through the last time—a little overeager, Amora thinks, because Loki is not usually one to plunge into an unpleasant task.

“You called?” Loki tries for a smirk as snide as before. Instead she looks wary, and curious.

“I’m certain you know what this is about.” Better to let Loki start, to know how to respond. 

To her surprise, Loki looks even more uncomfortable. She looks at a spot to the right of Amora’s face and says, “I may have overreacted.”

She’s _embarrassed_ at her outburst earlier—by its content and by its fervency, it was quite the admission. This has suddenly become easy. Amora feels foolish that she let herself worry.

“I have some ideas of how you could make it up to me.” She smiles, satisfied and genuine, no traps there. She beckons, and pulls Loki onto her lap the moment she gets close enough. Amora takes a moment to run her hands around Loki’s petite waist, up her narrow back. The time in which she has to touch this body is now limited. She murmurs a few words and breathes life into the spell; the layers that Loki is wearing begin to unwrap themselves from her body. Amora is going to make the most of this time.

With her fingertips she traces the lines of Loki’s body as it is revealed to her, slowly. She looks, long and thoroughly. Loki’s body is still full of adolescent gangle; her breasts are small, her limbs long and slender, and her collarbones make sharp shadows. Amora stopped seeing this as reminiscent of a boy’s body some time ago, and cannot pinpoint quite what made the difference. She bends close to kiss a line up Loki’s chest, and sees thin blue veins branching and spiraling just beneath Loki’s skin, where it is so pale it becomes translucent. Amora realizes they must become hidden when Loki flushes, her skin becoming pink and opaque—as it is beginning to already.

Loki runs a hand through Amora’s hair, tucking it behind her ear; an understated ploy to see Amora’s face, and what holds her attention. Amora speaks more spell words, and heavy relaxation flows out of her hand at the small of Loki’s back. Amora can feel the tension leaving Loki’s body.

“What is that—“ Loki begins, but Amora shushes her. “I just want you to enjoy this a little longer, my dear. I want to take my time with you.” She leans in again, and takes a bit of Loki’s skin into her mouth, sucking hard to make a bright mark. She picks another patch when she’s done, going slow; she makes a necklace of bruises-to-be around Loki’s shoulders, where they will be hidden by her clothes. Loki’s breathing stays slow and even, but takes on a ragged edge, growing deep; every exhale becomes a soft moan. Amora becomes very aware of how warm Loki is between her legs, where she straddles Amora’s lap. She decides she’s had enough of this part.

She ushers Loki off her lap and into the bedroom, shedding clothing as they go. An idea has formed in her mind even before she tips Loki onto her back. She pins Loki’s wrists to the headboard, and leaves them magically bound there. Loki smiles—this is not the first time they’ve done this. She looks surprised when Amora moves down to put her face between Loki’s legs. _This_ is new. Amora holds Loki’s hips to the bed and grins, taking in the sight and scent of Loki spread out and on edge, clearly excited, clearly nervous. Then she closes her lips over Loki’s clit.

She is familiar with Loki’s scent and taste, and of the feel of her quim at every layer, but the intensity of drinking her in this way is unparalleled. Amora feels foolish for not doing this more often. She leaves off her gentle sucking to lap along the folds of Loki’s quim, moves one hand and spreads her open with her fingers to reach deeper. Loki is so soft here, and it’s as though that is the key to her softness in every respect—Amora gets her open like this and can watch her go boneless, utterly pliant, a fluidity newly born into her movement. Loki is cautious everywhere but here.

Amora leaves off spreading Loki open in favor of slipping her fingers inside. She can never get enough of how it feels to be inside her—and never will. She moves past the thought, curling her fingers and focusing on the way that makes Loki try to buck off the bed, pinned by the tight grip of Amora’s other hand. She’s yanking her wrists against Amora’s bonds and her hips against Amora’s hands and Amora sees her stomach grow tight, her orgasm building steadily as it gets into her head how trapped she is from every angle, at the mercy of Amora’s fingers moving in and out of her and her lips still ducking down to tease and suck every so often, just enough to pull little cries out of her throat and bring her to a new level of urgency before leaving her there to feel Amora’s fingers delving deeper and deeper and harder—

Amora feels Loki’s quim clip tight around her fingers and then suddenly _she_ is coming too, something like the shock wave that just hit Loki’s body washing over her. It can’t have been an orgasm, she thinks, because it’s not _enough_ \--she climbs up Loki’s body where she lays limp, heaving breath, and wraps her legs around one thigh. She rides her until the whole bed has taken up the reverberation of it, slamming against the wall. Loki has stopped fighting against the restraints; she is limp, then spreading her legs wide, canting her hips up to meet where Amora is rutting against her, then wrapping them tight around Amora’s thigh and hip with wholly unselfconscious little peals of urgency. Amora can’t tell what wetness is hers and what is Loki’s anymore, and where her quim meets up against Loki’s leg and hair and oh, especially her own quim sends jolts of unbelievable pleasure up Amora’s spine. Amora throws her head back and grinds her hips for what feels like hours before she comes. When she does, it feels like minutes more before she can drag enough air back into her lungs. They are both making noises almost like sobs.

It is evening. They both lay without speaking until Amora is nearly asleep. Then Loki sits up—the magic to her restraints finally gone—and says hoarsely, “I’ve been away all day. I should go.”

Something like regret or guilt stops Amora’s breath for a moment. “Please stay,” she says. “Just for the night. I can help you come up with an excuse, if you need.”

Despite the growing dark, she can see the stillness in Loki’s face that means she’s wary. Amora picks out her words carefully. “We both want you to stay the night. I don’t see why you shouldn’t, as long as we can get away with it.”

Loki’s head tilts almost unconsciously to one side, caution becoming shock. It is not Amora’s fault, what Loki takes from these words. “I can come up with an excuse,” she says. She lays back down, and Amora reaches for her. They kiss until they sleep.

Amora half-wakes sometime in the night, tight with wanting. She kisses into Loki’s mouth and squeezes her breasts until Loki is awake with her and sliding her fingers inside Amora, rolling on top of her. Amora drops off again soon after.

The next morning, she is filthy and starving. Loki picks up her clothes and hides away to draw a bath, while Amora sends a servant for food. Loki entered through the mirror, and no one saw her arrive; whatever gossip follows Amora’s night, it won’t draw Loki in. Amora catalogues all this as she has been picking up loose ends for months, and feels strange, thinking that after tomorrow, she won’t have to any more.

She brings the tray with her into the bathroom, where Loki is soaking, hair slicked back and head resting on the side of the tub. After a moment’s thought, she sets it aside, drops her robe to the floor, and steps into the water. The tub is large, and it is not uncomfortable to sit down between Loki’s legs and lean back into her chest. Loki’s hands come up to rest along Amora’s ribs. Amora allows this. She tucks her head against Loki’s neck and closes her eyes.

The bath loses heat quickly, and they dress, eat, and talk. The air feels cool, and Loki is full of gentle smiles alongside her usual wickedness, this morning—her carriage has an uncharacteristic amount of contentment in it. A particular curiosity born partly of indulgence strikes Amora, and she tells Loki, “Wait here.” From her closet she retrieves a dress—too small for Amora now, kept mostly out of sentiment—and holds it up before her. “You are always in a tunic and trousers, so as not to be incriminating,” she says, “but this is where you commit all your incriminating acts, isn’t it?”

Loki’s eyes have come alight. “All the best ones,” she says, holding out her hand.

She retreats to try on the dress. Amora sends away the plate, tries not to think. Loki calls her back into the bedroom.

She fills out the dress surprisingly well, Amora thinks. It’s amazing how much more curvy Loki seems when wearing something tailored to show that. Her hair is still quite short, for a girl—Loki tucks a strand behind her ear, and Amora sees the ring from Vanaheim on her hand. Apparently she keeps it on her person.

“It truly suits you,” says Amora, with appreciation. Loki smiles, shifting her weight minutely. “I’m really not just saying that,” Amora continues, coming up to her, pulling her close. She feels Loki’s bare knees brush her own; they both jump as though shocked at the touch. “I think you should make a habit of wearing skirts,” she says, lifting the hem of Loki’s, sliding her hands up Loki’s thighs, to the juncture of her hips. Nothing underneath. “I should…perhaps let you wear that for a _bit_ longer,” she says, a little breathless. Loki laughs.

“Well, what do _you_ do,” she says, stepping gently out of Amora’s reach, “when someone wants to get his hands up your dress like that?”

“Oh, I lead him around just a bit like you’re doing,” says Amora. Struck with a bit of inspiration, she follows Loki around the bed to the table and drawers where she keeps her toys. “I let them catch me only for a moment,” she says, crowding Loki up against the bed, taking her face in her hands and kissing her. She stoops to pull the drawer open, and Loki slips away, moves back around the bed. Amora pulls out the false phallus, the harness; she fits them together, steps into them. Smoothes her skirt back down over the whole ensemble. “I let them have me when I’m ready.”

Loki has been watching her, and watches her still as she comes around the bed again, with a faint smile. She takes Amora’s hands and pulls her close. Loki kisses her then like it is she who is deigning to grant Amora this favor, and she who can revoke the right. Amora feels proud, and also weak in the knees. Her hands on Loki’s waist are careful, reverent.

Soon Loki’s kisses are messy and open mouthed, and her legs are opening too, parting over the firm cock under Amora’s skirt. She reaches down to palm it; it’s far, far more immediately erotic than it should be. Amora breaks off the kissing to turn Loki around, and pulls her hips back against Amora’s cock. She puts her lips close to Loki’s ear. “May I try this?” Loki nods, panting, and Amora bends her over, lifts both their skirts.

She teases Loki first, sliding the head of her cock up and down the lips of Loki’s quim. Loki is already slick. Amora begins to dip in, very shallowly, and plants a hand on Loki’s back to keep her from thrusting backwards. Loki chokes down a frustrated noise, and Amora laughs, and hikes Loki’s skirt a little higher around her hips. She’s beginning to understand the appeal of this position. The view is magnificent.

She bends her body over Loki’s, speaking into her ear. “It’s so marvelous, to be had like this,” she purrs, and starts to push slowly in. “You can do it practically anywhere, and mostly clothed. It’s perfect for when you’re desperate, and it’s just so delicious to get them up inside you, and they’re so desperate too, to get you.” She’s thrusting steadily now, and can hear the wet noises she makes with each in and out.

The sheets on either side of Loki’s head are balled in her fists, and fluttering a little in front of her mouth with the force of her breath. “Tell me more,” she pants at Amora, and moans when Amora picks up her pace.

“Gods, it’s so good to have someone in you so _deep_ ,” moans Amora. The flesh of Loki’s arse ripples a little each time Amora comes up against it, and it’s mesmerizing. Loki strains backward against Amora’s hand, and Amora lets her go, in favor of gripping both her hips. Loki moans loudly in surprise, and Amora lets go of restraint, pounding into her. “They mount you like an animal and start fucking like one, they get so wild to stretch you open and spill inside you—“

Loki screams a little, and her thighs start to shake in the way they do when she’s coming. Amora can feel the tension and heat pooling inside her own quim, and shoves Loki further onto the bed, fucks her harder, puts the whole weight of her thrusts on top of her. She can feel Loki coming apart beneath her and fucks her straight on through it, through the tired, spent little noises she makes with each of Amora’s continued thrusts, and through the point that those noises become urgent again, and Loki tries levering her hips up off the mattress, backward to meet Amora’s momentum. Then Amora comes with astonishing power, vaguely aware of Loki shivering and crying out with her. She rolls off, onto her back. Loki stays right where she is.

Eventually, she does raise her head. “It’s something like noon,” she says to Amora. “I well and truly need to go.”

“Yes, of course.” Amora swallows sudden nausea. “Please clean yourself up as you need to; I need a moment.”

Amora pulls off the harness, cleans her toy, puts all back in order while Loki is in the bath. She can’t think. She doesn’t know what to say. She has to tell Loki, and yet, it’s impossible at this juncture. All she can think, over and over, is _this is the last time I will ever be with you._

Loki emerges, back in her own clothes. She pulls Amora into a kiss. “Thank you for persuading me to stay,” she says when she pulls away again.

“I’m glad I did,” says Amora. Loki looks at her curiously.

“When should I come by again?” she asks, after a moment.

“I will let you know,” says Amora. She watches Loki’s back as she turns and steps through the mirror.

Amora’s rooms are a mess. There are books, notes, and clothing covering half the surfaces; even with the aid of magic, she will be hard pressed to pack it all in a day and a half. She dives into the task. It keeps her busy late into the night, and she drops off exhausted for only a few hours before starting again in the early morning.

She knows she is avoiding the inevitable, and that she is compressing it down to a rapidly vanishing margin. And yet, there is a part of her mind, growing in clarity and volume, that tells her she has already avoided the worst. Her last memories of Loki—and Loki’s last memories of her—will not be of screaming recriminations. Though they had their unguarded moments, they never had a chance to tear into each other with their very worst. Amora cannot think of any deep relationship she has had where this is the case, and for all the selfishness of the act, it is something she intends to keep.

Still. She can’t simply vanish. She fishes ink, pen, and paper out of her things, and sits at her bare table.

_My Dear Loki,_

_I am sorry to have to break this news to you in such a way, but I believe it is for the best. I am leaving for Alfheim on a course of study this day, and I wished our last days together to be happy ones._

_Please be assured that my decision to move on in no way reflects on you—I could ask for nothing more, in a student, a companion—_

_Or a lover,_ she nearly adds, and remembers that this letter could yet be read by another besides Loki. This will be a draft, she decides, in which to write out anything she might be tempted to say, before editing appropriately. She finishes the sentence, and writes on.

_You and I had more of an understanding than I have shared with any other person._ Amora recoils, but it’s a draft, just a draft, write on, so _You are clever, and beautiful, and not at all sweet, and your sense of humor is excellent, and you are full of such powerful potential. I cannot think you will come to rule when Thor is so universally beloved, and I cannot think you’ll find a way to bend all to your will. And yet; I have a feeling you will find ways to get anything that you want._

_Please continue your studies. Please continue to frighten your peers and destroy your enemies. Please grow into a woman who all men regard with awe. Please think of me fondly._

_Amora_

She stares at it. It’s disgusting, but parts of it are salvageable. The first passage is decent. The second passage has merit, up until she stopped filtering herself. So much for a draft. She draws sharp, vengeful lines through most of it, and continues below.

_Please be assured that my decision to move on in no way reflects on you--_ and yet that isn’t true.

_Though you have been an exemplary student and companion, I fear you have placed too many expectations on our arrangement. There are many reasons—which you well know—that this situation is not sustainable, the least of which being that no one can be expected to mentor indefinitely. Furthermore, I know that our mutual influence on each other has not always been suitably fitting to our station or appropriate social function._

She thinks _You and I are in many ways dangerous to each other,_ and puts instead, _I encourage you to continue your studies under the tutelage of a more beneficial mentor._

_Please forgive me my failings,  
Amora_

Not even she can be this cruel, Amora thinks, reading it over. It’s far too terse, and too honest. The very point of this kind of parting was to not recriminate, she reminds herself. She needs something between the two versions. She begins again.

_My Dear Loki,_

_I am sorry to have to break this news to you in such a way, but I believe it is for the best. I am leaving for Alfheim on a course of study this day, and I wished our last days together to be happy ones._

_Please be assured that my decision to move on does not reflect on you so much as on the present situation of your apprenticeship. Though you have been an ideal student and friend—indeed, you are wonderfully talented and full of powerful potential, and I have valued your company every day that I’ve had it—there are many reasons that the present arrangement is not sustainable. I won’t condescend to you by enumerating in detail what you already know. Furthermore, I think that another could provide better tutelage to you, and encourage you to continue your studies under a suitably beneficial mentor._

_I leave you with my best wishes, and my fondest regard,_

_Amora_

She reads it over again twice more. It’s not satisfactory by any means, but it’s as good as it’s going to get. She sends for a family carriage to come retrieve her things, rewrites the final letter on a new sheet, seals it, packs the last of her things, and burns the practice paper.

Servants come to take her things out, and the room empties. She sits at the table and watches her possessions disappear, leaving only the furnishings that are not hers, the ashes in the hearth, and the letter on the table.

It all seems so neat. Really everything about this went off as neatly as could be wished. She is pleased with that, and proud of her comportment in the matter—for once, no bridges burned before she was ready. A sign of growth for her, she thinks.

She leaves behind the last of the servants, striding through the familiar halls of the palace and bidding it farewell with her head held high. If she continues like this, she reflects as she enters the carriage, and arranges herself for the journey, she’ll go very far in life.

Amora will get to have everything she puts her mind to wanting.


End file.
